The week in review
I’ve been keeping myself busy this month remodeling my bathroom. What started as a shut-off valve leak has mushroomed into the project that ate Tokyo, requiring work from the cement slab all the way up to the ceiling. I’m doing it all myself. It’s not so bad, and it always makes me feel a little closer to him when I use tools. Tonight I taped; tomorrow and probably Sunday, too, I’ll be painting, if my shoulder holds up. I should have it all done by next weekend.
I was in a car accident yesterday, rear-ended as I sat at a red light. It happened so fast, and I didn’t feel hurt at the scene, but apparently I did get some whiplash. My neck and shoulder are pretty stiff and sore today. I was already mopey yesterday; this didn’t help.
I’m back on the Tylenol PM, no doubt because of the feelings erupting in anticipation of the sadiversary coming up next week. After 2-3 nights of lying in bed, awake and thinking too much about things I cannot change and do not like, I decided to be pre-emptive. Tylenol PM was my friend in those early months, and sleep my only relief. I find myself going back to it when the sadness-induced insomnia returns. I imagine I won’t need it long past the date; the days leading up to it are always the worst. If I didn’t get addicted in those worst days , I’m probably safe now.
Leaving work for lunch today, something caught my eye on the ground outside the boss’s window. It was a dead hummingbird. Poor little thing probably hit the window, which is tinted and somewhat mirrored from the outside. I grabbed a gardening trowel at home after lunch so I could bury it when I got back. I don’t usually bury wild animals I happen upon, but hummingbirds are special to me. I admit, the burial was less about reverence and more about self-defense; I couldn’t bear to walk past it day after day and I didn’t figure anyone else was going to take care of it. It was so tiny and as I gently placed it in the hole I dug, its neck seemed broken. Poor little bird. Unsurprisingly, it choked me up. I hope it wasn’t the one that usually hangs around the office; he’s been my friend from a distance for a long time.
I was doing dishes the other night, and as I did I considered my life as it stands currently. There is a lot of good in it. I have enjoyment, hobbies, cool toys, financial security, friends, and love from both sides of the veil. I have a lot, a lot that’s good. And yet I continue to feel like something’s missing. What is it? Well, A, obviously. He’s missing. But I figured out what else has been missing. Before he died, I was very content with my life. Everything was clicking along, just as I wanted it to, and I had a great deal of satisfaction in and gratitude for that. I was a lucky girl.
The life I have now more or less looks a lot like the life I had before—these 2 lives are not twins, of course, but they’re definitely cousins. But the contentment is gone. I have happiness, but have not yet gotten back to that "just happy to be here" feeling, where I could regularly say "life is intrinsically good" with any real conviction. It’s a quality, a feeling that I’m missing. Will I ever regain that? I’d like to.
Onward, for there is nowhere else to go.